A Camden Family Wedding

by Victoria Pade

  That made Vonni laugh more genuinely. “Is that right?” she said as if he were being presumptuous.

  “You gave me one night,” he reminded. “If you think I’m not taking the whole night, you’re wrong.”

  “The whole night....” she repeated as if letting it sink in but also with a hint of joyful anticipation.

  “And some of the morning—brunch isn’t until eleven after all....”

  Brunch.

  When he would go off and be a Camden.

  And she would go home and decide if she was going to be a Camden employee.

  When everything would become what it truly was.

  But until then, she had the rest of tonight.

  And part of tomorrow morning.

  And nothing could make her think beyond that and being right where she was at that moment....

  Chapter Ten

  “Let me do what you wouldn’t let GiGi do—let me convince you to come to brunch.”

  It was eight o’clock Sunday morning after a night like Vonni had never had. She and Dane had made love until they’d both dropped into exhausted sleep, bodies entwined, at 4:00 a.m. They’d slept a few hours and made love again. Each time better than the time before. And for at least half an hour now she’d been lying at Dane’s side, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, one of her thighs resting over his, the length of their bodies joined seamlessly together. Just talking, neither of them making any move to leave his bed.

  “No, the brunch is for family,” Vonni said, sounding so, so much different than she felt.

  Little by little as the night had gone on, she’d found herself slipping into old patterns. It had been so incredible being with him—not only making love but before and after, the talking, the kissing, the teasing and love play, the tender moments, the serious moments, the funny moments, every moment—that she’d begun to want more and more nights just like it. A forever of nights like it. She’d wanted it so much that it had started to seem inconceivable that he wouldn’t want it, too.

  Until she’d recalled that he didn’t want it. That he didn’t want forever with any woman. That he was unwaveringly devoted to his no-marriage, no-kids policy.

  And she’d mentally shaken some sense into herself.

  She’d been putting on the blinders again and she’d recognized it. She’d been forgetting that there was a component other than what she wanted. Other than how she wished things could be. And she’d reminded herself that she didn’t have the power to change that other component. That she never had the power to change it.

  She’d reminded herself that the past years of dating and disappointments had left her with nothing of what she wanted and that—as unwaveringly devoted as Dane was to his own goal—she needed to be just as dedicated to what she’d set out to do, too. To restoring herself, to reenergizing, to actually taking a step forward with a house, a dog, so she could begin to have some of what she wanted, and then find a like-minded man who was interested in building a life with her.

  She’d reminded herself that to do anything else, to fall back into her old pattern with Dane and read more into this night than she should, would set her up for the biggest disappointment she’d ever suffered.

  So outwardly she was being light, glib, carefree.

  Even if, inwardly, there was far more turmoil roiling.

  “This is it, remember?” she said, looking at her hand on his chest. “The window of opportunity is closing.”

  “You’re really going to make me a one-night stand?”

  She would never let him know how different she would make it if she could. “That was the deal.”

  “But we made the deal. We could alter it. You could come to brunch and when it’s over we could have the rest of today—I could go with you to the animal shelter again, help with that horse-size sack of dog chow you bring them. Then we could go to dinner and have tonight....” He held her a little tighter. “Maybe we could even have until the lawyer you hire hashes out your contract with us and you actually sign it—I can do more talking about why you should come to work for us....”

  And possibly if they saw more of each other he’d come to realize how good they were together and he’d fall in love with her and he’d want to spend the rest of his life with her—it was thinking like that that had cost her years with Tanner and David and Mark, years with countless other men she’d dated for a month or two or three in hopes that it would lead to having what she wanted because it would lead to them wanting it, too.

  But Dane’s no-illusions policy was saving her from that.

  Even if saved was hardly how she felt....

  “No,” she said without any strength in her voice.

  “So this is it?” he asked, rubbing her back and sounding as if he couldn’t conceive that.

  “Is the job offer not still on the table?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure, it is. Of course. That goes without saying.”

  “I suppose if I get that lawyer he’ll do whatever negotiating needs to be done, but we might see each other during the course of that, right?”

  “I guess....” Dane said, even more confused.

  “So this isn’t the last time we’ll ever see each other,” Vonni concluded. “But it is the last time—”

  “We’re together,” he said, finally understanding where she was going. “The last time we’re together the way we have been for the past two weeks. The way we have been since last night. The way we are now....” He flexed the biceps across her back to hug her a little.

  Vonni hoped that he interpreted her silence as confirmation or merely an opportunity she was giving him to let things sink in.

  But really she had to maintain that silence because she was working so hard at keeping her own emotions under control as the reality of how things would be from here on hit her, too. As she suffered the agony of facing that she wouldn’t have any more of what she’d had with him—no more dinners, no more walks, no more talking and laughing and teasing. No Sundays like last Sunday shopping and running errands and just being together. Definitely no more nights—or mornings—with him....

  She took a deep breath, careful to do it slowly so he wouldn’t know she was struggling.

  Then she said, “When I’m ready to get back on the dating circuit again, it’s still marriage and a family that I want. Exactly what you don’t want. And if we see each other anymore—for anything that isn’t job related—I’ll start to get invested. I’ll start having hopes for more. I’ll start to think that because things are good between us—”

  “Ooh...things are great between us....” he muttered, and sighed as if it had been so great he didn’t quite believe it.

  But Vonni ignored the impulse she’d followed too many times in the past to run with that, to point out just how great things were and how they could get even better and that it was something they could have permanently.

  Instead, she went on with what she was saying.

  “I’ll start to think that because things are good between us you must want what I want for us. And then when that isn’t true—” the words—or maybe it was tears—clogged her throat and she had to swallow hard to go on “—I just won’t do that again. I know where you stand. I appreciate knowing that and I respect it. We said last night was just last night and that’s what it was.”

  His arms tightened around her even more than they had before and she wasn’t sure why. Was he hanging on to her and what they had because he didn’t want to lose it any more than she did?

  Or was it merely one final, parting embrace, a reluctant validation that she was right?

  The old Vonni would have grasped on to the hope that his arms were tighter around her because he didn’t want to lose her, and she would have clung to that idea.

  The new Vonni waited.

  A
nd when he squeezed even tighter and then loosened his grip, she knew.

  She knew nothing was different for him. That they might have had a fantastic two weeks, an absolutely amazing night, but he was now what he’d been from the start—a man who had no intention of getting married, of having kids. And that the only way to be with him would be to deny herself what she wanted. And then find herself once again having wasted precious time when it ended and her life still wasn’t where she wanted it to be.

  So no matter how tempting it was to have more time with him like what she’d already had, to put off everything just to be with him, to hope that eventually he wouldn’t want to lose her and so might change his mind, she would not—could not—do it.

  She patted his chest. She kneaded her fingers into it for a moment before she gathered every bit of willpower she’d ever had and pushed up and away from him, rolling to the side of the bed, using the sheet as a toga.

  “So no brunch. No nothing from here on,” she announced, thinking that she deserved an award for the performance that made it sound matter-of-fact and nothing at all like what she was feeling.

  Dane didn’t say anything, but she knew his eyes were on her and when she cast him a forced smile over her shoulder she saw the dark frown, the confusion that was on his handsome face.

  He probably didn’t know what to say, she thought. He was too nice a guy to say, Yeah, you’re right, I don’t want to marry you any more than I want to marry anyone else, so if that’s what you’re holding out for, better to part ways now.

  And because he was too nice a guy to say that, he wasn’t saying anything. He didn’t want to hurt her—she knew that.

  But she could maintain her performance for only so long and she knew she had to get out of there. In a hurry.

  With the sheet wrapped around her she headed for the bedroom door. “I’m just going to throw my dress back on and go. Don’t get up.”

  “Vonni—”

  She shook her head fiercely and held up the hand that wasn’t clamped on to the sheet in a death grip to stop whatever it was he was about to say.

  “Let’s just leave it at what it was,” she said in a voice that cracked and made her hate herself. “I’ll probably come to work for you and we’ll just go on as if nothing ever happened.”

  “Vonni...” he said as if she were deluded to think that was possible.

  But she cut him off again. “Say that’s how it will be or I won’t come to work for Camdens,” she threatened at the door, not turning to face him, not looking at him even over her shoulder because she just couldn’t. And because she didn’t want him to see the pain she knew by then had to be etched into her expression.

  It was Dane who was silent this time and even though it was only a moment it seemed like an eternity.

  Then, quietly, reluctantly and sounding as if he were just saying the words because she was making him, he said, “Come to work for us and we’ll go on as if nothing ever happened.”

  “I’ll let you know—or the lawyer will,” she answered as if the job offer was the only thing they’d been talking about.

  Then, using every ounce of oomph she had, she went out that bedroom door. She went down the service stairs to the kitchen where she got dressed quicker than she ever had in her life. Then she nearly ran out of that condo’s front door barefoot and only carrying her shoes.

  All the while hoping that Dane stayed away, hoping as she leaped into her car the very second she had the door open that he hadn’t gotten out of bed or gone to the window to look down at her—or if he had, that he couldn’t see her clearly enough to witness the tears that finally flooded down her cheeks.

  Because her heart was breaking and she had no idea how she could have gotten in this deep this fast.

  Especially having known right from the start that—for so many reasons—she could never have anything at all with Dane Camden.

  * * *

  “Dane. Here you are in the den,” Dane’s grandmother said. “You helped make all of this happen and every time I turn around, you’re nowhere to be seen.”

  “Carter needed a bathroom run and asked me to take him. I was just coming back from that.”

  Partially true. Dane’s three-year-old nephew had asked to be taken to the bathroom. But that was a while ago, and after sending Carter back to the brunch, Dane had hidden out in the den.

  “What is wrong with you today?” GiGi demanded.

  “Nothing.” The biggest lie he’d ever told.

  “The wedding was beautiful and we have you to thank for that,” GiGi went on. “And you said you think the Hunter girl is going to do the wedding departments for us, didn’t you?”

  “I think so. I gave her John Beckman’s name, told her to use him to hash out a contract she can be sure protects her—”

  “Beckman will do that for sure—he’ll skewer us. But no matter what it takes, it isn’t too much—H.J. and your grandfather could have gone to prison for buying those formulas when they knew they were stolen, and this is merely just compensation. So we can check off making amends for another one of these messy things in our background because you did a good job on that, too. You should be out there celebrating, taking bows for both of the things you accomplished, and being happy.”

  He was sooo far from happy....

  “True,” he agreed halfheartedly.

  “But you don’t look happy.... Are you sick?” his grandmother continued to pry.

  Illness seemed like a better excuse, so Dane seized it. “Maybe I’m a little hungover,” he said. “All those toasts last night, you know.”

  “Well, take something for it and come back. You’re my other man of the hour today for doing all you did and I want you out there, by my side, getting credit where credit is due.”

  “I’ll get an aspirin or something and be right behind you,” Dane assured her.

  He wasn’t in the least hungover, so he had no need for medication but he figured that pretending he was going to take something would buy him at least a few more minutes to himself.

  And he needed to be by himself. He was just a damn wreck today and in no mood for socializing.

  But liquor wasn’t to blame. He hadn’t had much to drink at all last night.

  What he’d had was a night to top all nights with Vonni.

  Maybe he had a Vonni hangover.

  Except that he’d had hangovers before and in the midst of them the last thing he even wanted to think about was whatever had given him the hangover in the first place.

  But today Vonni was all he could think about.

  And while a hangover left a bad taste and an inclination toward never indulging again, he certainly didn’t feel that way about Vonni.

  That was the problem.

  He wanted to indulge again and she’d shut him down.

  Without him seeing it coming.

  When it came to women, he didn’t look at things long-range. His no-marriage policy just didn’t call for that. He tended to be in the moment with them, and he guessed that he’d been so in the moment with Vonni that she’d taken him by surprise. But damn if it hadn’t hit him like a battering ram.

  While he was lying in bed with her this morning, it had been unfathomable that everything was about to come crashing to a conclusion despite the ground rules they’d agreed on for that exact thing. It had been unfathomable to think that last night was the one and only night he was going to get with her, that all that had gone on between them for the past two weeks was over and never to be repeated. Facing that had flattened him.

  He’d just lain there in bed, baffled by the fact that what was happening was happening, unable to stop it.

  Because how could he stop it when everything Vonni had said was the truth?

  He’d been as clear with her as he was with every woman—he didn
’t want marriage, he didn’t want to do the whole family thing.

  And she’d been clear with him—she did want marriage, she did want the whole family thing. So much that she’d approached it like a second job and intended to go back to that after this temporary breather she was taking.

  Given how clear they’d both been about what they wanted and didn’t want, what could he have possibly said to argue with her exit?

  Nothing—that was the answer. There wasn’t a single damn thing he could have said.

  But why had it been so gut-wrenching? he kept asking himself as he stood at one of the windows in the den and looked out at the cars parked in the drive. Why was his gut still wrenched? Why was he twisted into knots and feeling worse than any hangover had ever left him?

  He just kept trying to figure that out....

  When he and Nessa had parted ways for her to go to medical school, when Donna had gone overseas to take pictures, he hadn’t felt like this. He had not been twisted in knots. He’d said goodbye to them, wished them well and told them to keep in touch.

  When Rebecca had decided she did want marriage and a family after all, it had been unpleasant having her try to convince him to marry her. But he had not been twisted in knots even though he had cared that things between them had reached that impasse and so would stop.

  But hell, even in the middle of Rebecca arguing her case it had occurred to him that she was perfect for Buzzy and that Buzzy would be interested.

  Now just the thought of Vonni ultimately finding some guy who would want what she wanted made him recoil. It made him feel almost as sick as if he did have a hangover.

  And equally as strange was how he’d felt since arriving at GiGi’s house for brunch today.

  He’d felt rotten since Vonni had left but it had gotten even worse here.

  Not ever before had it bothered him to be on his own at these family things. If he was involved with someone, he included her in family events and occasions, but if he wasn’t, coming solo had been just fine. Not once had he looked at siblings or cousins who were coupled up with someone and felt envious. Felt alone and...